In the end he can’t work it out, but walking into a first floor office he tells the girls behind one of the desks a long and convoluted story about a girlfriend. How they have been seeing each other for almost a year, and he wants to surprise her. She’s a keen cartographer, and he has buried a secret treasure for her. Paul hints at a hidden engagement ring. He was on his way to give her the coordinates, but now, with the weather, the note has been destroyed, and would she mind helping him? He shows her the ball of pulp.
‘It’ll only take a minute, tops,’ he says. ‘I’d be happy to pay you for your time,’ he continues and pulls out a big crinkly note. One that’s to last him a month. The girl smiles and calls him a silly romantic. She puts a fresh sheet of paper in her machine.
‘What numbers do you want?’ she asks, fingers poised.
He thinks hard, tries to remember if he ever saw the number he put in his pocket this time, but realises the note was folded over. He tries to remember any of the other numbers he’s seen, but draws a blank. They’re just numbers, and not ones that make any sense to him.
First eight then a space then four, he thinks. How hard can that be? Surprisingly hard he realises, trying to make them up from thin air. In the end he looks at the clock, tells the girl, ‘three’, then outside at the row of parked taxis, says ‘nine’, looks at the girl’s hands. First the left. On it an engagement ring, the only kind of jewellery she has that he can see. The ring has a couple of white stones set in a ring of five red ones. So he says ‘One, two, five,’ then after a pause, he looks at her right hand. It hovers over the top row of keys, and so he says ‘Nine, seven, eight’.
Drawing a deep breath, he asks the girl to make a space between the first set of numbers, and what’s to follow.
He can’t remember how he came up with the remaining four numbers, but once he’s out in the street his legs are shaking like after the worst of his races. The rain has stopped and he asks a paperboy for directions to Fitzrovia.
When he finally gets to Ilya’s place he’s told he’s late by a snooty maître d’ on the bottom floor. Paul’s told he’s not to worry. Ilya is coming back. Just had to see someone about a delivery of fish. In the meantime the maître d’ has been instructed to hold onto the envelope Ilya is waiting for.
Paul tells the man there is no envelope, not this time, and this part is true. A simple clerical error by Mr Knapp. After putting his index finger to his pursed lips the man folds a newspaper he has in front of him, and asks Paul to deposit the slip inside, and properly witness how he, the maître d’, has not, and will not, look at the slip. The numbers are Ilya’s business.
Paul’s pulse threatens to kill him, but he nods and walks out of the building, to his locked bike. Through the window he sees the man unfold the newspaper and have a good long look at the number. Then laboriously copying down the combination in the margin of another paper, anxiously looking up to see if anyone sees him.
Paul briefly considers going back in to catch the man, but decides he’s had enough for one day.
Chapter 19
September comes to London with no wind but plenty thunder. It’s muggy and damp to begin with, then the haze clears and for weeks it seems like the world is a warm, kind place, where you can trust that one day will be like the next. One where there’s no need for wool sweaters or galoshes. Mother Nature is deceitful. She lulls us into a comfortable dream where one layer is enough. It will end, everybody knows, but for the time being, for three glorious weeks it’s marvellous.
Paul’s glad to be outside with the wind in his face. He keeps on going all day till the afternoon turns to evening and the cooler air rolls off the river and the parks to greet him. He heads for the heath and finds Miriam crouched over her book of poems. As she doesn’t greet him, just holds one finger up in the air to stop him interrupting, he sits in a chair, quiet as a mouse, waiting until she is done. Then she looks up and smiles and his world starts turning again.
‘Come on Paul. Let’s see if we can catch the sun coming up.’
They sit on the roof of the baths looking out over the Heath. Miriam has her hair wrapped in a towel and is smoking a cigarette stuck in an oxblood Bakelite holder, looking far away onto the horizon.
‘Paul, I’m trying to not think about how high up we are,’ she says. ‘I know it was my idea to come up here. I’ve never been, wouldn’t have wanted to come up alone, but this is nice.’
The night is about to turn into day. Paul’s hands are a little shaky. Not because he’s tired or thirsty. Because he’s got a present for Miriam in his pocket. It was her birthday a few days ago, but at the time she never told him. He only found out by accident. She was wearing a new scarf, bright pink, and he commented on it, and it slipped out that Miriam’s friend Alice Barrett gave it to Miriam for her birthday.
Putting a hand in front of her mouth when the story came out she made him promise not to buy her anything. She told him she doesn’t like birthdays. So he’s not bought Miriam anything, he’s had something made for her. It’s in a box, in a little velvet-lined box, in his pocket. The jeweller advised him, with a wry smile, to get one much too big to hold a ring. A flat one, with no hints of hearts or doves, so there’s no mistaking. No use either sending the wrong message or having the girl be disappointed.
He’s just looking for the right moment to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. And in the meantime he’s happy just to look at Miriam.
‘You know I came to that race,’ she says. ‘The one at Kensal Rise.’
‘You did? I looked everywhere for you,’ he says.
‘I thought you were great by the way,’ Miriam says and looks up at him.
‘Thanks, it turned out to be a pretty exciting race in the end. Where were you sitting?’
‘Well, I spotted Silas in the queue, and thought that maybe you had put us together, for some stupid suicidal reason.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Paul says. ‘Besides there are no seat numbers apart from the very posh ones. You just stand where you find a place. Or sit if people are polite enough. I had left a ticket for you in the office, but it was general admission one with a note to say where would be good to stand.’
‘I don’t know what I was thinking. He and I are like your family down here. Maybe you wanted us to meet?’
‘No.’
‘Well, at least I thought my seat would be a good one, and people are usually easy to spot in good seats, like you know boxes in theatres. Instead I got myself a cheap ticket, a standing one up on the hill. It was mostly men, but they were surprisingly polite.’
‘Tuesday crowd. Did you get the flowers in the end?’
‘No. Were they nice?’
‘Quite nice. Sorry, no, they were probably the nicest, biggest, most elaborate bunch of flowers ever seen. Since the last coronation or royal wedding at least. You would have had to hire an extra horse and carriage to transport them home, would have had to rent an extra flat for them.’
‘Well, if that was the case, I’m sorry,’ she says and blows him a kiss.
He shuffles his feet. Fingers the box in his pocket.
‘So are we a secret?’ he asks, decidedly not looking at her.
‘I don’t see the need for Silas to know everything. Sometimes untold things hold a power in themselves.’
He nods. He knows the score.
‘If my mother could see me now,’ she says, ‘all perfumed, expensive slippers, Christy’s terry cloth robe, a strong man, an imported cigarette.’
‘And if mine could see me. Socialising with a ringleader,’ he smiles.
‘Is that how you think of me?’
‘No. But she would have.’
‘Tell me something about her.’
‘I don’t really remember my mother,’ he says, then stops. Looks at Miriam and smiles. She is somewhere between her two guises. She has had a bath, but the night still lingers in the air and so does some of her make-up and manner. He looks at her, then continues, ‘Growing up there were one or two pictu
res but my father hid them when I got older. It’s possible he destroyed them. He couldn’t bear to look at them any more, he said. They were photographs, must have been taken before they were married, as she was very young in them. I used to stand looking at them on the mantelpiece. They were behind glass, in little oval, black frames. The glass reflected and I would try to line up my face with hers to see how much we looked like each other. It didn’t help that whenever we met my uncle, her brother, he’d say that I was an exact replica of her, apart from the hair.’
‘Was she not ginger?’
‘Her hair was as black as coal at night. My father’s hair was red when I was a child but now it’s all white. Well it was the last time I saw him.’
She looks at the brightening horizon, then she says, ‘Keep talking Paul. I’m still not sure about the height.’
‘She died in childbirth,’ he says, ‘when I was six.’ He looks where she looks, then continues. ‘I would have had a brother but they both died. My father and I never talked about it. I remember him coming home only to change into black and leaving again, instead of coming home with Mum. I was left with a neighbour, then later, a cousin of mine came to stay. She managed to stay on for a year or two, then she left. My father was either out in the fields or drinking. I was sent to school, my uncle paying the fees, but that soon stopped. I was needed on the farm, my father decided. I was strong even at ten, free labour. My uncle’s money continued going to the schoolmaster, who took a big cut, then sent the money to my father, who spent it on drink and bad odds.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Miriam says and moves closer. Takes one of his hands in both of hers.
‘I don’t know,’ he says and shakes his head. ‘I became quite good friends with some of the farmhands. It suited me to be outside all day, to do things, look after animals. I know that’s some people’s idea of hell but I was good at it and I enjoyed it. I made sure I didn’t see my father too much, and in limited doses he was always fine. Could even be nice to me every now and then.’
‘At least you had a home.’
‘I’ve never thought about it like that.’
‘I’ve lived in more places than I can remember,’ she says looking out over the park.
‘I’ve lived in two.’
‘Maybe we’re too different to be together?’
‘Are we?’
‘I’m joking. It doesn’t matter how many places you’ve lived in,’ she smiles.
‘I meant,’ he says quite seriously, ‘are we a couple? Secret or not.’
‘Do you want to?’
‘Do you?’ he says looking up at her, one hand on the box in his pocket.
‘I asked first.’
‘I asked second,’ he shoots right back.
‘Well, you keep avoiding the question, which to me speaks volumes,’ she says quite seriously.
‘I do want to stay Mr B, I mean category B,’ he says.
‘What are you talking about?’
Paul explains the conversation he had with Stanley in the coffeehouse. This makes Miriam laugh so much she starts to cough. She has to stand up to clear her airway. She staggers over to the edge of the roof, and holds onto the little barrier. She’s laughing and crying and eventually drops the towel. Her hair comes cascading out. Wet, fragrant, long, curly, unpinned. Two stories down, a pack of dogs start fighting over the towel and it’s soon ripped to pieces. Her vertigo has been distracted by the laughter, by the towel, by the canine brawl, but as the dogs limp off to lick their wounds it comes surging back.
‘Paul!’ she shouts, frozen.
He quickly gets up from his chair, runs over and takes her in his arms. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got you,’ he says.
‘That’s good,’ she says, quietly. She buries her head against his chest. ‘I’m just going to stay right here for a minute,’ she says. Paul nods. His chin resting on her head. His nose full of her scent. She wriggles closer to him and says, ‘I can’t decide whether to go to bed or take a vial, you know just get on with it.’
He stays quiet. Puts his arms tighter around her.
‘I can feel your heart beating,’ she says.
‘My pulse is usually a lot slower.’
‘Not when you race.’
‘Even then it’s not this fast.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘You should.’
Now they are hip against hip. She holds him harder, feels the man underneath the clothes. His head comes away from her head. She looks up at him. In case something is wrong. In case he’s seen something, heard someone coming. He hasn’t. Almost imperceptibly his face moves closer to hers. She mirrors his movement. When they kiss she has to crane her neck. He puts a hand on her cheek. She puts more pressure on the small of his back. A sound escapes him, like a small animal. She winces. In the best way.
After a while she takes his hands and puts one over her eyes, for the descent of the stairs.
‘To help with the vertigo,’ she says. She leads him to a room she’s never shown anyone. One behind the dining room with all the copper things and pictures of the Bosphorus.
She tells him to sit down on the bed, but remains standing herself.
‘Before you can come too close, there are things you need to know,’ she says.
‘Whatever it is, it can wait. Miriam, let’s not talk any more.’
‘This is important, and it’s not easy. If I stop now I might never try again. And I’ve been waiting many years.’
He sits on her bed, a pillow in his lap. Disappointed. Attentive. Confused. He nods, and she starts, doesn’t look at him, ‘Years ago, before I came to London, a friend of mine told me about a man she sometimes serviced. My friend, who knew me, knew my family, said he was the kind who would cry and talk about his memories after. And this one told her things she didn’t want to hear. Things about a niece. He was an old soldier. Always wore a uniform, tattered and foul, with more medals than she had ever seen on any man’s chest. Even on real heroes in parades. One evening I walked with her, by her usual territory down by the docks, and I recognized him. My mother’s enemy: my father. I hid quickly, while she lured him in. As my friend worked him I put my scarf around his neck and pulled and pulled. It looked like a snake winding up and down his back as he struggled. I pretended it was just an animal with its own will to make the thing easier. When he stopped breathing we pushed him into the water and a guillemot picked up my scarf in its beak and flew off.’
Paul looks at her. She asks if he can still like her despite knowing what she’s capable of. He smiles, nods, swallows, and walks over to kiss her again. Her hands shake as she starts to unbutton his shirt. Then she stops. Pushes him away from her and steps out of her dressing gown. Then she comes close again and helps him with the buttons.
***
Afterwards, they listen to each other’s breathing. The morning now well on its way. A bullfinch comes to rest on the windowsill, then it sets off, a blurred ball of red and black and grey. In the trees, crows. In Paul’s stomach, butterflies.
Miriam says, ‘You spoke about your parents, now I’ll tell you some about my mother, or about me rather.’
‘Mmm,’ he says. He’s very sleepy.
‘My mum named me Kråke. I never use it. Never tell anyone.’
‘What does it mean?’ he says.
‘It means crow in Norwegian.’
He says, ‘Little crow.’
She smiles and puts a warm hand to a stubbly cheek. He says, ‘Why not use it? It’s nice.’
‘Thanks.’ She looks out the window. Continues, ‘My mum was never happy. I think I looked a lot like him, and I think some of his madness got into her. She liked reading and she liked books, and one of the last memories I have of her is telling me about my names. Miriam, that’s from the Bible. Kråke is different,’ she says. ‘She told me I was born with very dark hair, lots of it too.’ She looks away from him. Behind him, out of the window again. ‘Will you please get me the book from the shelf? Read to me
, from where the bookmark is. I like your voice.’
He gets up, and she tells him cycling has been good to his bottom. ‘Especially in this light,’ she laughs. He pretends to be outraged. Picks up a cushion on the way back to bed.
Once under the covers he puts a couple of pillows behind his head and she settles on his chest. He feels his heart slow again. His breathing returned to normal. A few minutes ago he was breathing quickly, not sure how to continue, until he couldn’t stop. Now he’s calm, and warm and hers.
No. 26
Kråke she called me – her Little Crow
Black against the whitest snow
Just before passing she told me a story
A Viking princess, shrewd plans and late glory
Protected by snakes and killed by the same
And that’s how she found my name
When he puts the book down she is asleep. A snail’s trail of saliva on his chest. He puts the book on the floor. A mid-morning sun is blazing outside the window, and he looks at Miriam. Her eyes move behind her eyelids, like planets moving back and forward across the heavens. In his jacket pocket a flat box. On the floor, next to the book a black feather with a gold top. He moves down under the covers and knows it won’t be long until he is asleep too.
Chapter 20
Today’s race is important. It’s a qualifier for a whole series of big races later in the year, some even on the continent, and unfortunately a troupe of incredibly fit Dutchmen have turned up. Paul does a long warm-up to disassociate himself from life outside the velodrome. Just before he lines up for the start he glimpses Silas on the grandstand. That puts fear into him. Not necessarily a bad thing. As he rests, Harry ambles up to him.
‘Hello Paul, how are you?’
‘Fine. A little out of breath, but not more than I should be.’
‘You look fine. It’s a tricky track. And that’s if your bike and your health are both up to scratch.’
‘I feel I’m quite fit, have been doing a lot of training lately, and the bike is in as good a nick as it’ll ever be.’
Devil Take the Hindmost Page 12